Session127
TitleMemory in Tolkien's Medievalism, I
Date/TimeMonday 2 July 2018: 11.15-12.45
 
SponsorCardiff Metropolitan University
 
OrganiserDimitra Fimi, Centre for Fantasy & the Fantastic, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
 
Moderator/ChairBrad Eden, Independent Scholar, Valparaiso, Indiana
 
Paper 127-a World-Building and Memory in the Name-List to the 'Fall of Gondolin'
(Language: English)
Andrew Higgins, Centre for Fantasy & the Fantastic, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
Index Terms: Language and Literature - Comparative; Medievalism and Antiquarianism
Paper 127-b The Smith, the Weaver, and the Librarian: Sub-Creating Memory in Tolkien's Work
(Language: English)
Gaëlle Abaléa, Independent Scholar, Orléans
Index Terms: Language and Literature - Other; Medievalism and Antiquarianism
Paper 127-c Tolkien's Typological Imagination
(Language: English)
Anna Smol, English Department, Mount Saint Vincent University, Nova Scotia
Index Terms: Language and Literature - Other; Medievalism and Antiquarianism
 
AbstractJ.R.R. Tolkien's 'secondary world' unfolds in an immense depth of time.This sense of depth is inherent in The Lord of the Rings and is apparent in scenes such as the 'Council of Elrond', during which Elrond himself reminisces about events that took place thousands of years previously. What is more, it is not a literary device: Tolkien spent most of his lifetime inventing an extended mythology that detailed the history of his imaginary world over millennia, including a cosmogonic myth and a great number of interrelated legends and tales. This session will explore time in Tolkien's legendarium with an emphasis on memory. Papers can focus on topics such as the value, nature, means, or trauma of remembering and/or forgetting the past in Middle-earth, the role of memory in shaping the future, memorials and monuments, the fictitious transmission of the legendarium (via texts or orally), and remembering and forgetting as part of Tolkien's 'secondary world infrastructures' (Wolf, 2012) such as timelines, genealogies, languages, cultures, etc.